Electronic systems and circuits have made a significant contribution towards the advancement of modern society and are utilized in a number of applications to achieve advantageous results. Numerous electronic technologies such as digital computers, calculators, audio devices, video equipment, and telephone systems have facilitated increased productivity and reduced costs in analyzing and communicating data, ideas and trends in most areas of business, science, education and entertainment. Frequently, electronic systems designed to provide these advantageous results are realized and maximized through the use of distributed network resources that present information to a person and permit the person to interact with the networked system. Most distributed systems expend significant resources to provide information to target individuals in anticipation of eliciting an interaction (e.g., a response) and the manner in which the information is presented to the target individual usually has a significant influence on the likelihood of the individual interacting with the system. Usually, there are a number of intricate factors that impact the likelihood of interaction and developing a presentation that stimulates interaction typically requires rapid analysis of complicated motivating factors.
Traditional electronic technologies typically present information to target individuals in a variety of ways. For example, televisions and computers typically present information in the form of audio (e.g., sounds) and visual (e.g., pictures or graphics images) information. One of the most common and prolific distributed resource systems includes numerous inter-networked computers communicatively coupled together to form the Internet. Electronic systems (e.g., the Internet) usually support a variety of information communication configurations such as information communication from a central resource (e.g., a central location such as a web site hosted on a server computer) to remote resources (e.g., a personal computer at a remote location such as a home or business) and vice versa.
One of the primary objectives of many electronic systems is to motivate a diverse audience to interact with the system. The information is usually presented at a “touch-point” (e.g., a web site on a personal computer, a menu-based voice recognition telephone system, etc.) that permits the target audience to interact with the system (e.g., enter a response). Electronic commerce (e-commerce) Internet sites are one example of a touch-point that presents information to target audiences (e.g., a target individual) with the objective of receiving target interaction (e.g., a purchase). E-commerce Internet sites often involve commercial activities such as selling products or financial services (e.g., on-line banking). The ability of information provided on e-commerce sites to motivate customers or subscribers to interact with a site greatly impacts the benefits of these sites (e.g., consumers purchasing merchandise). Thus, it is often very important for information presented via an electronic system to appeal to the target individual.
Information is often presented to a target individual or audience as part of a campaign. The campaign is typically a series of activities with a related purpose (e.g., motivate interaction) directed towards achieving a particular outcome. The campaign is usually associated with target objectives (e.g., profit, revenue, number of interactions in response to information presentation, etc.) and presentation constraints (e.g., budget limits, target exclusions, minimum or maximum number of information presentations, etc.). One of the primary attributes of a good campaign is presenting information that stimulates interaction consistent with target objectives and presentation constraints. If a target individual cannot understand and relate to the information included in a touch-point, the target individual typically has very little or no interaction with the touch-point.
Determining what manner of presenting information will appeal to and motivate a target individual to interact with a web site usually requires the presentation of information in each touch-point to be painstakingly analyzed (e.g., manually) for impacts on one target individual versus another target individual. Identifying and separating target individual preferences and tendencies and developing a plan for guiding information presentations that correspond to these preferences and tendencies traditionally requires a lot of work over a significant time duration. Managers performing the identification and separation are often required to have diverse capabilities (e.g., an understanding of psychology, business, computer technology) and significant knowledge of how target individuals interact with a variety of systems. The combination of these abilities is relatively rare and persons performing these tasks are relatively expensive. Traditionally, particular presentations are created for one target individual or audience and different presentations are developed for another target individual or audience.
Creating a presentation that is likely to motivate target individual action is typically a long and arduous process and a target individual's tastes or desire may change over time, increasing the difficulty of determining if information is being presented in a desirable manner. The speed at which the performance of target individual preference and tendency analysis is performed is often critical to motivating a target to interact with the touch-point. Target preferences usually change and the ability to quickly detect and adapt to these changes can significantly impact the likelihood of receiving an interaction. Traditional techniques for detecting and adapting to changes in tendencies and preferences of a target individual or audience usually take a relatively long time and are often unable to adjust fast enough to facilitate maximized interactions.
What is required is a system and method that facilitates expedient and efficient presentation of information in a manner that increases the probability of target individual interaction. The system and method should be able to monitor user interactions and test action plans.